Tales of Ethshar

About “The Unwanted Wardrobe”

This is the only story in the book that is not an official Ethshar story. It is, instead, an April Fool’s joke. I had written a novel called The Unwilling Warlord, and after a long delay I had serialized a sequel to it (and to others) that wound up with the similar title The Unwelcome Warlock, so for April 1, 2011, I claimed I intended to follow it up with The Unwanted Wardrobe. I posted alleged details describing outrageous payment terms, saying I intended to write over a hundred chapters, etc., and provided the following as the supposed first chapter. It came out well enough that I decided to include it here.

The magic described here is all acceptable by Ethsharitic rules, as is much of the background, but some of the names aren’t, and if I were to ever seriously write a story with this premise (which I might, someday) I would not jam in the Oz and Narnia references, and I’m not sure about the “Project Runway” allusion.

I’m appending some notes at the end, for those who miss the in-jokes.